German chancellor Angela Merkel’s party won yesterday’s German federal election but lost its coalition partner after one of the most closely watched German elections in decades.
Early figures indicate that Dr Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) topped yesterday’s poll with 41.8 per cent, up almost nine points and just short of an absolute majority.
Her outgoing Free Democratic Party (FDP) coalition partner won just 4.7 per cent, in early forecasts, falling short of the Bundestag’s 5 per cent hurdle.
A beaming Dr Merkel struggled to be heard over thunderous cheers of “Angie! Angie!” when she took to the stage of her CDU party headquarters last night. “It’s a super result and I’d like to thank all voters who gave [us] such phenomenal support,” she said. “We will use it responsibly and carefully to ensure the next four years can be successful for Germany.”
No return
As results began to filter in last night, Dr Merkel declined to speculate on her coalition options. One option appeared closed, however: a return of her outgoing coalition with the liberal FDP.
After a record high in 2009 an ashen-faced Rainer Brüderle, the party’s campaign leader, took responsibility for the “worst result to date” in the party’s 65-year history. Onstage beside him, a frozen FDP leader Philipp Rösler and six other solemn party leaders lined up as if for a firing squad.
“Today is a difficult evening,” said Mr Brüderle. “The work of the FDP will continue, it is not the end of our party.”
Early analysis suggested a four million collapse in the FDP vote, half of which went to the CDU, after the party failed in office to push through its tax cut promises.
The mood was surprisingly upbeat over at the Social Democrat (SPD) headquarters despite projections of 26 per cent – the second-worst result in the 150-year-old party’s history.
Despite posting only a three-point gain, opening up a 17-point gap to the CDU, the SPD’s centrist candidate Peer Steinbrück looked tired but satisfied. He denied he had been hobbled to present a left-tinged party programme demanding a statutory minimum wage and tax increases for top earners.
Social justice
The SPD programme was a sensible attempt, he said, to unify social justice with economic sense. Like Dr Merkel, Mr Steinbrück declined to speculate on coalition options, but he departed the stage last night with a clear warning to his party.
“The situation is unclear . . . the ball is in Merkel’s court, she has to find a majority,” said Mr Steinbrück, who has ruled out serving in another grand coalition under Dr Merkel.
SPD floor leader Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who failed to unseat Dr Merkel in 2009, agreed that the party’s grand coalition experience after the 2005 election “does not urge to be repeated” – however, party strategists have reportedly begun compiling grand coalition negotiating papers.
The SPD’s preferred coalition partner, the Greens, struggled to hide their disappointment last night at their forecasted 8.4 per cent result. Party leaders conceded their “bitter failure” to fill the policy gap left by losing their unique selling point – opposition to nuclear energy – after Dr Merkel’s post-Fukushima decision to phase out nuclear power by 2022.
The party had failed in its attempt to co-opt some of the SPD’s social justice competence, leaving the party down three points and struggling for a new political direction. “We will get out of this hole,” promised Katrin Göring-Eckard, co-campaign leader.
Third largest
Despite losing over three points Left Party campaign leader Gregor Gysi was confident his party, comprising reformed communists and disillusioned SPD supporters, would enter the new Bundestag as Germany's third-largest political force with 8.5 per cent.
Alongside Dr Merkel, the other big winner of the evening was her loudest critics: the Eurosceptic Alternative for Germany (AfD). It was founded just last February, and exit polls gave the new party 4.8 per cent last night, a hair’s breadth from the Bundestag.
“From a standing start and much resistance, we can be happy with the result,” said party chairman Dr Bernd Lucke, who campaigned for an end to bailouts and a euro exit option for crisis countries.
“We have formulated an alternative for people disappointed with all parties.”
Regardless of how yesterday’s vote pans out, he said the AfD would run in next year’s European elections and challenge mainstream German thinking on EU bailouts and the banking union.
Protest voters
Early election analysis suggested the new party attracted support from both ends of the political spectrum. It profited the most from the FDP – some 440,000 votes – but also 300,000 from the hard-left Linke, suggesting the new party is a magnet for protest voters of all political persuasions.
The new party also cost the CDU an estimated 360,000 votes.
Yesterday’s federal result was reflected in the central state of Hesse, where the ruling CDU lost its FDP coalition partner, making a grand coalition with the SPD likely.